


The Street Rat and the Warrior

by Gaeasun



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaeasun/pseuds/Gaeasun
Summary: Jason Todd is an orphan on streets of Crimaly, just trying to survive day to day in the nightmare city. One day he tries to steal from the wrong person.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36





	1. The Street Rat and the Warrior

Jason Todd was born on the planet G’thm, in the dirty city known as Crimaly. 

He hated the city, but the place was a trap, a dark void that never let go once it had hold of your soul. The rest of the planet wasn’t much better, but Crimaly was the place where no one wanted to be, yet too many people found themselves. 

When he was young, Jason's mother died after becoming hooked on spice, an unfortunate fate that Jason had seen many on G’thm fell to. And a year later his father disappeared too. Jason never knew for sure what happened to him, but he knew his father had been working for a local notorious two-headed crime lord. The kind of scum who would kill without second thought.

So ever since Jason was twelve, he had been on his own. He wanted nothing more to escape, but he knew that would probably never happen. So he just focused on survival, day after day. 

There were technically laws in Crimaly, but no one ever followed them. Everywhere you looked someone was taken advantage of, whether by spice, slavery, thievery, or something else. Jason chose small time thievery, getting his hands on whatever he could and pawning it for food.

While no one ever wanted to stay in Crimaly, it was a hub of travel to many important cities. Some people who travelled through were either to cheap or too poor to pay the tolls that guarded the major speeder lanes. Others could very well pay the tolls, but everyone knew that on G’thm, the best place to do less than legal business was Crimaly. 

So every now and then, someone had to leave their speeder in front of a cantina as they either bought food or relieved themselves. Jason made his living by sneaking off parts of those speeders. Sometimes he even snuck into the shipyards and made the ships there a little lighter. The locks there were easy to hack, but then again, all locks were easy to hack to Jason. He wasn’t sure why, as he recalled neither his mother nor his father ever had any kind of skill with technology. 

But he really didn’t care. Jason didn’t have a past, or a future. All he had was the present, and he wanted to stay in it as long as possible.

One dark night, Jason was sneaking around the streets, when he saw the most beautiful vehicle he had ever seen. A heavily modified WLO-5 speeder tank. Normally used for piracy, the speeders were equipped with durable armor, strong repulsorlifts, and dangerous weapons. This specific vehicle was smaller and sleeker, with a fitted dome for the pilot. Additionally, every visible piece of metal had been colored a beautiful black. Even the glass was tinted dark.

If Jason had anywhere to hide the craft, he would have immediately hopped in and taken it for his own. As it was, he figured that any part from this beaut would be in top condition, and he could get maybe a food days worth of food from. Jason took a furtive look around, looking for the owner, but seeing nothing, he took out his hydrospanner and ducked under the craft to take a look at the repulsorlift engine.

Once Jason removed the armor plates protecting the engine, he let out an appreciative whistle. The engine was just as beautiful as the rest of the hovercraft. He had seen the designs of many different kinds of repulsorlift engines, but this was tweaked in ways he had never seen before. He figured it would be able to reach speeds twice as fast as a typical WLO-speeder tank. And hopefully it would still work without the piece he pried off. It looked like some sort of cooling component, but there would be backups and warning systems to keep the engine from exploding. He hoped. It would be a shame if a craft this nice was blown to black rubble. 

Jason quickly put the plates back on the engine, save for one small non-essential attachment piece that he was going to keep as a souvenir. He rolled out from under the car, brushed off some dirt from his jacket.

And looked up into the helmet of a humanoid who could only be the owner of the speeder. A large, man?, clad in Mandalorian armor the same color as his ship, with strange little protrusions from the top of his helmet. 

Jason had heard the rumors, of a man wearing Mandalorian armor, with enough skills and equipment to take down a small army. You never saw him coming unless he wanted you to. And when he was done with you, he left you with a couple of broken bones, and that’s if you were lucky. He fought crime lords and bounty hunters, even a rogue Mandalorian that had recently been throwing the planet a state of terror. He never lost, never came unprepared. Unfortunately, Jason thought he had surprised him.

"What. Are. You doing.” The dark warrior growled.

Jason Todd definitely wasn’t lucky. He definitely wasn’t careful either. But all the rumors had mentioned said that even though the man was brutal, and he left his enemies beat and broken, he never left them dead. So hopefully Jason stood a chance.

Anyways, who needed caution.

“You do know you’re in Crimaly, right? Everyone gets stolen from.” With that, Jason rolled back under the dark warrior’s vehicle, still clutching the part in his hand, hoping to get to the sewer cover he knew was only a few feet away. 

Jason didn’t even get close. 

The dark warrior was on the other side before Jason even came back up. With a deft movement, the man grabbed the back of Jason’s shirt and lifted him in the air. Jason cursed to himself as he scrambled. He couldn’t get out of his shirt with his jacket on. The man stared at him closely, ignoring Jason’s fists beating his forearm plates. 

For some reason, Jason wished he wasn’t so scrawny, that the skin on his face wasn’t drawn so tight against his bones, or that his ribs weren’t clearly visible through the thin cloth of his shirt. If this guy was as great a fighter everyone said, then he probably saw Jason as nothing, a Kowakian Monkey-Lizard compared the all the people he had seen, had fought.

“Are you hungry?”

Jason blinked, and froze. Thats… not what he expected. This guy, who was a someone instead of a no one, wanted to know if he was hungry?

“Well?” The man in Mandalorian armor spoke again.

“Well yeah I’m hungry! I’m always-” Jason cut himself off. The city beat him down enough, he didn’t need to do it to himself too.

The Madalorian didn’t speak, but put Jason down. He took the cooling piece from Jason’s hand with surprising gentleness, then went under the speederr to put it back in. 

Jason stayed where he was. He wasn’t sure why.

When the Mandolorian was done, he came out from under the speeder. He pulled out a device out of a pocket, and pressed a button. Jason flinched, half-expecting to get blown up. Instead, the dome to the speeder opened. The Mandalorian smoothly jumped in, and motioned to a second seat inside. 

Jason hesitated for a second, but listened to his instincts against caution. 

He hopped into the speeder, and soon found himself on the outskirts of Crimaly, devouring a bantha burger. For a while the Mandalorian sat at his side, and didn’t speak. Jason didn’t feel the need to speak either, he just wanted to eat. He finished his the first burger and moved on to the second.

“What’s your story child?”

Jason scowled and opened his mouth to retort, accidentally inhaling part of the burger. He choaked and wheezed for a minute, trying to breathe again. 

“Don’t call me ‘child,’ I’m not a child. My name’s Jason.” He paused for another bite.

The Mandalorian chuckled. “Alright, Jason. You’re younger than most on the streets. And most on the street here have groups, families they belong to. They work together. But you have no markings of any of the groups here. You are alone; why?”

Jason shrugged, pausing to swallow before he breathed this time. “Family just lets you down. Mine did, and others would too. So I’m alone, and I like it like that.”  
The Mandalorian paused, seeming to think. Then he spoke again.

“Would you like to leave Crimaly, Jason?”

Jason dropped his burger.

“More than anything. It’s what I’ve wanted my whole life.”

“Then come with me.”

Jason did.


	2. Only Different

“What do you mean you don’t use blasters?” Jason moaned, even as he was bouncing all around the cave that the Mandalorian, whose name he learned was Bruce, used as his base of operations. 

It had been a few weeks since they had even first met, and Bruce (it was still weird thinking of him as “Bruce,” and not “legendary warrior that could whoop him with his pinky finger”) decided to not take him directly to his home, but instead took Jason with him as he finished tracking an elusive group of infamous spice-dealers. When Bruce had finally found them, he had locked Jason in the tank, with an added stay here, and had run off into a swamp. 

Jason promptly disabled the lock, and ran in to the swamp to see the man work. He had scrambled up a tree as soon as he heard fighting, and peered out into the darkness. 

He heard grunts and screams from the dealers, but nothing from the warrior as he brought them down, one by one. 

One of the dealers tried to flee, right under where Jason was hiding. He let himself drop, coming down feet-first on the guy’s head. He dropped like a sac of rations. 

Bruce had come with a disapproving glare, having knocked out the rest of the dealers. “Did I not tell you to stay where you were?” he growled.

Jason shrugged. “I wanted to see you in action. It was so cool! You went like, pow! And whack!” he pantomimed the moves the Mandalorian had used.

Bruce didn’t speak for a moment, and Jason couldn’t read him from behind the helmet he wore. As black as the rest of his armor, with strange little points at the top. 

“How did you bypass the locks?”

Jason grinned at the interest in his voice, glad it wasn’t anger. “I’m good with that kinda thing. I got into hacking when I was little, when I got into the door locks and figured out how they worked. Now there’s no lock I can’t bypass,” he boasted, the grin on his face turning cockeyed. “Though, yours were pretty tough. Took me a minute to find out how the system worked, and bypass it.”

“Hmm,” was all the warrior had said, and walked around to a nearby tree. Pulling out a vibroshiv knife, he began slicing at the nearby Blackvines, until he had several long strands. Binding them together, he used them to tie up all dealers, ensuring they would stay down for a while. 

Bruce had then pulled out a small device from a utility belt that hung around his waist, and threw it hard enough to imbed in a tree. The device lit up and began to hum. Jason recognized it as a homing signal. 

“What’s that for?” Jason asked.

Bruce put his hand in front of his mouth, indicating silence. He didn’t speak again until they were in the speeder-tank.

“That connects to an ally I have in G’thm City. He can have someone pick up these thugs.”

G’thm City. The capital city of the planet, where some of the best people of the planet dwelled, or so Jason had heard. He had never seen anyone from G’thm City. 

It was also the where head of the Police Force of G’thm was located, and where the officers trained, and were sent out to the rest of the planet. Jason had wondered if there was some dark force that twisted Police Force officers before they came to Crimaly, because every officer there was corrupt, and everyone knew it. 

Well, they were either corrupt or dead.

After that, Bruce had finally driven to his lair. Jason had explored with eagerness, until he realized that there were no blasters to found anywhere. Lots of cool equipment, but no blasters. Jason had asked, and had received his disappointing answer.

“But blasters are so cool!” Jason protested. “You can shoot people with them! From far away! Or do an awesome quick-duel. I bet you would win all of those!”

“I don’t use blasters. And I won’t teach you how either.”

Jason was soon distracted by the sound of footsteps. A well-dressed man, holding a large plate of food that smelled downright-heavenly. And Jason was starving. Once his stomach discovered that he could now get large amounts of food regularly, his appetite had tripled.

He ran up to the man, who surprisingly didn’t react at the sight of a strange boy bouncing around their home. “Master Bruce, I do wonder if this is going to become a habit. How many bedrooms should I need to prepare in future times?”

“Jason, this is Alfred. I already told him you were coming. Yes, that food is for you, try not to-” He broke off as Jason immediately began shoveling food in his mouth like he was never eating again. 

“Master Jason, I hope you will allow me to teach you how to eat properly at a later time, when you realize you will not be close to starving anytime soon.”

“Don’t call me master,” Jason mumbled around his food.

“I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter… Master Jason.”

Jason swallowed hard to get the food down. “Who are you anyways?”

“That, Master Jason, is a short question with no short answer. But you may call me Alfred. I assist Master Bruce in his… endeavors.” 

“Am I going to assist him in his endeavors too?”

Alfred said nothing, but glanced pointedly at Bruce.

“Jason, if we’re both going to be honest, neither of us really know each other. But what I want to do is try to give you a normal life, if you want it. With a school and a home, and maybe a family.”

Jason swallowed hard again, but this time it had nothing to do with food. For a second, he tried to imagine a normal life. Not wondering where food was coming from, with an actual home to go to at the end of every day. People he would know who would know him back. A sort of family, with trust. 

He could go to school. He could get qualified with circuitry, get a normal job.

A normal life. 

“Nah.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. Bruce frowned. 

“I do want to stay here. But I don’t think you can give me a normal life. You certainly don’t have one. And I don’t really want a normal life anyways. Haven’t for a while, and think I’ve gotten used to it.”

“So what do you want?”

Jason stared at Bruce. Before now he tried not to think of the future much, of what he wanted. But now he just might have a future, one that he could make his own. So what did he want? At least, for now?

“There are bad people out there who hurt others. You hurt them back. I want to help,” he decided. 

For a moment Bruce didn’t respond.

“Alfred, take him to the manor in your own car. I’ll follow in the underground tunnels.”

As ALfred led him towards a fancy and expensive speeder, Jason asked, “Did I say something wrong Alfred?”

“Not quite wrong, young sir.”

“Only different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the stories I don't update that frequently, but I started reading detective comics and wanted to write some more of this. Hope you enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by two things: by the AU where Batman is a Mandalorian who keeps adopting foundlings, and also by a certain detail I noticed when I was rewatching the Last Jedi. So here is an AU about Jason Todd, in the Star Wars universe. I hope you enjoyed it! I'm probably going to write more, but I would be more inspired by comments and kudos. About 1400 words.


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